Allen Ridgeley
Allen Ridgeley is a character in the Xenosaga series. While he is primarily a background non-playable character in the first two episodes, in Episode III he takes a more active role in the storyline and becomes a temporary playable character. Allen is an assistant to Shion Uzuki and the main source of comic relief throughout the series. Background Allen comes from a wealthy, large family background, but he has since left that behind, preferring to not rely on them, and does not wish to dwell on his past. In Xenosaga I & II, it is revealed his father was a workaholic businessman who rarely played with him as a child. Allen has brothers (one even named "Alan"), and his brothers desperately completed to be their father's successor. Allen was the youngest brother and didn't see the appeal in that kind of rat-race. Allen comments his family life was like a "prison". Allen wants to be a "man", and part of being a "man" means self-independence. Leeching his family's inheritance and fortune and not contributing to humanity himself would not fulfill this desire and instead, be taking the easy way out. One of his secret passions is fishing. Allen's plan was to retire after working eleven years as a Camelle and buy a lodge in some isolated area and fish everyday for the rest of his life. Vector Industries After graduating from Bormeo University, Allen joined Vector Industries' First R&D Division in T.C. 4764 and was placed on the KOS-MOS development project under then Chief Engineer Kevin Winnicot and Junior Chief Engineer Shion Uzuki. Allen was away for a business trip when the incident of the KOS-MOS archetype malfunction occurred. He returned just after the event and was asked to identify the bodies of his former co-workers. He located Shion, who was relatively uninjured. A year later, after the incident where the KOS-MOS Archetype was prematurely activated by U-TIC, which resulted in Kevin's death, Shion was promoted to Chief Engineer and continued her mentor/fiancé's work while Allen was then promoted to Shion's former position as Junior Chief Engineer. He loves Shion very dearly, but he has had some trouble expressing his feelings to her. He wants to take Shion's pain and sorrow away and ease her emotional pain and suffering, but Shion is reluctant to share her pain with anyone. A large obstacle that lies between them is Kevin. Shion has yet to fully deal with his death and Allen feels that trying to approach Shion on a romantic level would only be harmful to her until she can put the past behind her. Xenosaga Episode I He often oversaw Shion’s Encephalon Dives to train KOS-MOS, and at least twice was forced to risk his life entering the dives to pull an oblivious and over-confident Shion out before they collapsed and killed her. He was aboard the Woglinde when it chanced upon a Zohar Emulator. In the resulting chaos caused by a massive Gnosis attack, Allen accompanied a self-awakened KOS-MOS to rescue Shion. On the way back to the escape pods, Allen fought alongside Virgil, KOS-MOS, and Shion, using an automatic rifle. Shortly after the attack, the Elsa rescued the escape pod Shion and Allen shared at the insistence of KOS-MOS. After their rescue, Allen made a terrible first impression on the crew by openly questioning chaos for his ability to dissolve Gnosis by touch. Later he was determined to try to get along with the Elsa crew, though it seems Hammer never did like him much. This habit of pointing out obvious inconsistencies or true possibilities even if they came across as insensitive cropped up a few times in the game. He distrusted the Kukai Foundation for being connected to “mutants”, though he had no issue with any of them when he met them and enjoyed visiting the Kukai Foundation. While visiting the Foundation’s beach at Jr.’s insistence, Allen showed that his personal sense of fashion is apparently very different than the common one, wearing a colorful Edwardian-era union suit to swim in. He continued his run of bad first impressions by insulting Jr. when the Durandal met up with the Elsa, though Jr. seems to have taken it in stride by taking a jab at Allen in a joking manner. Though chaos took part in this jabbing, Allen thinks chaos is “too nice” because when he later told chaos that he wished he could take Shion’s tears away, chaos listened to him. When the party was framed for the destruction of the Woglinde, Allen was sucked into KOS-MOS’s subconscious domain along with the rest, and was present when Nephilim informed them all that they would have to eventually confront their pasts. During one trip to the Kukai Foundation, Shion can obtain a photograph of herself from the Pink Bug. In this photograph, a translucent image of Allen is visible, and Pink Bug explains that the image is unexpected, but seems to be a nice ghost, looking out for Shion. This particular mystery is hinted at in Episode II, where a resident of Second Militia mentions a ghost that worked at Vector who couldn’t win the love of his beautiful boss and walks the streets at night. At some point during Episode I, the events of Xenosaga Freaks occur. KOS-MOS goes on a rampage destroying parts of the Elsa and Durandal, and it turns out that Allen is partially responsible for this by virtue of allowing Professor and Assistant Scott to railroad him into being Assistant #2 and convincing him to let them install the Schrödinger AI into KOS-MOS (a.k.a Assistant #3) which involved remote controlling her through cat-ear antennae and somehow releasing a nanovirus that adversely affects the 100-Series Realians and MOMO. Xenosaga Episode II In Episode II, when MOMO attempts to defend the Y-Data stored in her by erasing herself, Shion calls Allen in to oversee the Encephalon Dive into MOMO’s subconscious domain. Though he did not participate in the dive, as the overseer, he helped set up KOS-MOS’s mental transfer into it so that she could help the party, and he was aware of everything that occurred during the dive; this is likely when he learned about Yuriev and the history of the URTVs. He never spoke of it to anyone. Later on, when Shion is attempting to escape the Dammer‎üng by stealing E.S. Dinah, Allen accompanies her and has no trouble starting the E.S. or using the weapon system. This may not seem like much, but it was established early on in Episode II that ordinary humans could not endure the feedback of operating an E.S., and there are other factors that come into play in Episode III related to this. While stealing the E.S. Dinah, they encountered E.S. Dan and were unable to fight it off until KOS-MOS arrived on her space bike, which allowed her to transform Dinah into a proper E.S. and escape. For the rest of Episode II, Allen is in the background, though he does help Hammer navigate the Elsa to the correct place to pick up the party after their battle with Sergius inside Proto Omega. Xenosaga Episode III After Shion resigned from Vector, Allen was promoted to Chief of the KOS-MOS Project. Things were generally going well, and he told Shion that KOS-MOS was her “usual anti-social self”. However, by the time Episode III begins, Allen has bad news for Shion―the KOS-MOS project is being scrapped and some of the engineers, himself included, are being transferred to the military to work on another project. He invites her to a demonstration of the new project, which turns out to be T-elos. When news arrives that the Elsa is trapped inside a bubble that only KOS-MOS’s Third Armament can hope to pierce, Allen and Miyuki help arrange for the party to steal KOS-MOS. After this, he travels with the party for most of the rest of the game, riding in E.S. Dinah’s third seat and possibly helping co-pilot. Allen consistently worried over Shion’s fainting spells and helped her when he could, though he became increasingly irritated at her continued insistence that it was nothing to worry about, since Allen personally believes everyone is entitled to worry about their own troubles and not say that they are “no big deal”, since no matter what they are, they are real to the person experiencing them. On Old Miltia, when Shion insisted on exploring on her own, Allen went with her to protect her and both disguised themselves as U-TIC researchers. While inside Labyrinthos, he stalled a young Kevin long enough for Shion to steal the original designs for KOS-MOS. Professor and Assistant Scott used these materials to build a new frame for the then-destroyed KOS-MOS, while Allen used them as a guide to reverse engineer and repair her black box, something which no one previously had been able to figure out. It is unclear how much Shion was involved in this process, as in the game, she was playing HaKox and relaxing while repairs were being made to KOS-MOS. Allen was unable to reactivate KOS-MOS after repairing her; it took Voyager threatening Shion’s life to wake her up. Later on, when Shion is captured inside Labyrinthos, Allen accompanies the team to rescue her. At this point he is a playable character. His Big Shot is one of the most powerful Break attacks in the game, rivaling chaos’ Break attacks. If used carefully, he is a good support character, able to break in one or two rounds virtually every enemy in the area, including Pellegri, while also using status-affecting buffs and debuffs, making it easier for the more powerful physical fighters to clean up. He is something of a glass cannon with his very low Break threshold, though his other stats are average for a support character. When the party does reach Shion in Labyrinthos, the Red Testament reveals himself as Kevin and explains why he helped arranged the whole Old Miltia re-enactment. He orders KOS-MOS to take Shion and come with him, but KOS-MOS refuses, stating that she only follows the orders of her creators, Shion Uzuki and Mr. Allen Ridgeley. Apparently, the repairs made to her black box were so fundamental that they were, in essence, a recreation. Much later, while on Michtam, Voyager informs everyone present that they could have been Testaments, as they all have what Wilhelm calls Shining Wills. A Shining Will is required to operate an E.S., as the Vessels of Anima only respond to those with Shining Wills. Some believe Allen was not included in this, but the fact that he can operate an E.S. and suffers no ill effects from it suggests Voyager meant what he said and was not excluding Allen. Beneath Michtam, when Shion is deeply confused and chooses to leave the party to be with Kevin, Allen stands between both groups to stop the fighting. He confronts Kevin and tries to convince Shion to come back to the group, risking his life to do so. Kevin shoots red lightning at him that throws him around and into walls. It’s not quite enough to convince Shion, though she does tell Kevin to stop hurting Allen because he can’t do anything now. While badly injured, Allen tells Kevin how he feels about Shion, saying he has always wanted to bear her pain for her and that he would do anything for her. He also tells Kevin of his low opinion of Testaments and Yuriev, using their tremendous power to run away from life. He declares that he will bring Shion back, no matter what, to which Kevin responds by firing another red blast at him, intending to kill. KOS-MOS blocks it, sympathizing with Allen, carrying him toward Shion, and continuing to try to convince Shion to come back. When Kevin attempts to kill both Allen and KOS-MOS, Shion stops him and returns to the party. After the party defeats Zarathustra, Jin entrusts Shion to Allen’s care, calling him “my friend”. On their way toward the Elsa, Shion turns away for a moment and a Gnosis is about to attack her. Allen picks up a rifle, makes a huge leap onto its back that knocks it down and startles everyone else, then beats it a bit before shooting it. When he’s done, he offers his hand to help Shion up. At the end, Allen goes with Shion, Jr., Mary and Shelley, and the Elsa crew to find Lost Jerusalem. Quotes * "This is so typical of her. Will she ever stop to think about the hell I go through for her?" * "Thank heavens you were around to rescue us. We almost became space dust out there because of my stubborn boss here..." * "What's the matter, Chief? You didn't come down to the beach just to stare at a screen all day, did you?" * "She was crying, wasn't she? I think that's only the second time I've ever seen her cry. No matter what happens, she never shares her pain with anyone. It's times like these when I'm reminded that I'm nothing but a subordinate to her. I... I wish I could take her tears away. Maybe someday." (Allen venting to chaos) * "I'd accompany you to the very depths of hell!" (to Shion) * "...Sympathy? You don't understand Chief's suffering like I do. I understand her feelings, her pain and her sadness. And despite that, she struggled alone to do everything that she possibly could! You don't have any idea how much she's been hurt... or how she's suffered. How could anyone like YOU understand? You have no idea how much she's CRIED! You see, I wanted to cry in her place. And I wanted to be the one to feel her pain. Because... I wanted to spend my life together with her. I know that I may not be able to do much in this world, but I would do absolutely anything for her!" (to Kevin) * "I'LL SHOW YOU! I'M GONNA... PROTECT SHION!" Gallery Xenosaga Episode I AllenCon.png|Art. Scene15.png|Kevin, Shion and Allen look at the KOS-MOS Archetype. KevD3.png|Allen at Kevin's grave. AllenGrave.png|Allen silently watches Shion cry at Kevin's grave. AllenFood.png|Allen unsuccessfully invites Shion for lunch. Fff.png|No one cares about Allen. AllenEvacuate.png|Allen assisting with the Kukai Foundation's evacuation. Xenosaga: The Animation Allen0.png|Allen. Grave.png|Shion and Allen visit Kevin's grave. A1.png|Allen at Kevin's grave. A2.png|Allen and Shion. ChaosAllen.png|chaos and Allen. AllShiDur.png|Allen and Shion. Xenosaga Episode II Glasses.gif|Allen accidentally steps on Shion's glasses. DontStopMe.gif|Shion shoves Allen. Xenosaga Episode III KevinLove.png|Allen tries to reveal his love for Shion. AllenInjured1.png|Allen injured. AllenInjured2.png|Allen injured. AllenInjured3.png|Allen and KOS-MOS. ShiAll.png|Shion and Allen. Allens.png|Allen injured. ShionAllen.png|Allen and Shion. 004Allen_Ridgeley.png|Default. C3allenH02.png|Default (Injured). 006Allen_Ridgeley3.png|Swimsuit. 005Allen_Ridgeley2.png|U-TIC. AllenWin.gif|Allen wins a battle. Category:Characters Category:Scientists Category:Vector employees Category:Playable characters Category:Male characters Category:Episode I characters Category:Episode II characters Category:Episode III characters